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Diplomatic History as a Field for Cultural Analysis: Muslim-Christian Relations in Tunis,1700-1840Author(s): Christian WindlerSource: The Historical Journal, Vol. 44, No. 1 (Mar., 2001), pp. 79-106Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3133662 .

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TheHistorical ournal,44, I (200I), pp. 79-Io6 Printed in the United Kingdom? 2001 Cambridge University Press

DIPLOMATIC HISTORY AS A FIELDFOR CULTURAL ANALYSIS:MUSLIM-CHRISTIAN RELATIONS IN

TUNIS, 1700-1840*CHRISTIAN WINDLERUniversity of Freiburg im Breisgau

ABSTRACT. Diplomatic documentswhich record he relationshipbetweenFrance and the courtofthe beyof Tunisfrom the late seventeenthcentury o themid-nineteenthcenturyoffera uniquesourceto understand heway in which cultureswith verydifferentassumptionsmeetandadaptto eachother.Theceremoniesof submissionand reverence ad to beadapted omeetEuropeanunderstandings f thestate and nation while taking accountof Muslim attitudes to infidels. The French Revolutionintroduced ew criteriaand new tensionswhichcontinued o vex relations into thenineteenthcentury.This double mirrorof Otherness'raises interestingquestionsabout the natureof cultureand howculturesproveto bevery lexible inpractice.In spiteof thedichotomization f the Othersas strangers,therewas agreementon commonnormsgoverningsocial situations whereactorseffectivelynteracted.

IIn the Christian imagination of the ancien regime, the 'Barbaresque' corsairsoccupied a place apart as 'Others' par excellence,dressed up in the stereotype ofthe pitiless enemies of Christendom. In the representations of the 'Barba-resques', the power of the call to crusade survived until colonial times. At thetime of the conquest of Algiers, French propaganda fed on religious and seculararguments and asserted the merit of having cleaned up a nest of pirates, eventhough Mediterranean privateering, which had never been the sole preserveof the Maghrebis, by then belonged to the past.1

European legal doctrine raised uncertainties about the legal personality ofthe Muslim powers of the Mediterranean. If the theory and the diplomaticpractice of the eighteenth century considered that the universal principles of

* The author would like to thankJames Turpin for his help in translatingthis text into English.This article presentssome resultsof the author'sunpublishedHabilitationsschrift:adiplomatieommeexperienceel'Autre:consulsfranfais u Maghreb 700-1840(University of Basel, 1999).1 See Ann Thomson, BarbaryandEnlightenment: uropean ttitudesowards he Maghreb n theeighteenthenturyLeiden, 1987). On the myth of crusade, see Alphonse Dupront, MythedeCroisade(4 vols., Paris, 1997).79

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CHRISTIAN WINDLERnatural law applied to non-Europeans, the development of public internationallaw excluded the latter from the evolving diplomatic order of revolutionaryand post-revolutionary Europe, which was limited to the European andAmerican states alone that were considered to be civilized in the tradition of theEnlightenment.2 For the European chancelleries of the nineteenth century, thequestion was formulated in terms of a possible admission 'to the advantages ofpublic law and the concert of Europe', as was conceded to the Sublime Porteby the Treaty of Paris in I856.3 Yet, the absence of a precise definition of legalstatus had not prevented the European powers from concluding treaties withthe Ottoman regencies of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli nor from grantingfunctions of political representation - in the case of France with the formaldiplomatic rank of charge d'affaires - to the consuls that they maintained inthe Maghreb, whilst also negotiating capitulations with the Porte andmaintaining diplomatic representation in Constantinople.Muslim attitudes were characterized by analogous contradictions, betweena hostility in principle and the multiple forms of a pragmatic search for legalsecurity with regard to Christendom. The discourse on Christianity as the daral-harb (the lands of war), resulting from the belief in the divine origin of law,denied the legitimacy of all legal order outside of the lands of Islam (dar al-Islam). From this perspective the promises of protection in favour of Christiansand Jews depended on recognition of the dominance of Islam.4 In this mannerMuslim jurists attempted to provide points of reference that legitimized andhomogenized highly heterogeneous practices, which did not necessarily obeytheological formulations of power.5In the eighteenth century, diplomatic relations between France or GreatBritain and the Ottoman Empire and the regencies of the Maghreb were onlydisturbed by brief episodes of military conflict.6 Maghrebis and Europeansrespected, in their contacts, a body of common rules, set out in treaties andthrough custom, that French practitioners of the time - consuls, dragomans,

2 SeeJorg Fisch, DieeuropdischexpansionnddasVolkerrecht:ieAuseinandersetzungenmdenStatusder iberseeischenebieteom 5. JahrhundertiszurGegenwartStuttgart, I984), pp. 284-7.3 Hans Kruse, IslamischeVolkerrechtslehre2nd edn, Bochum, 1979), pp. I63-70. See JorgManfredMossner, Die VolkerrechtspersinlichkeitnddieVolkerrechtspraxiserBarbareskenstaatenAlgier,Tripolis, TunisI518--830) (Berlin, I968), pp. 148-57, on opinions concerning the regencies ofthe Maghreb.4 On the legal conceptions ofrelationsbetweenMuslimsand infidels:MajidKhadduri, Warandpeacen the awofIslam 2ndedn, Baltimore, 1955); Kruse,Islamische olkerrechtslehre.f. thearticles'Aman', 'Dar al-cahd', 'Dar al-harb', 'Dar al-Islam', 'Dar al-sulh', 'Dhimma', Djihad','Imtiyazat', 'Mucahada' in the Encyclopedieel'Islam.Nouvelle dition, ols. I,11, III, vn (Leiden,I960, 1965, 1971, 1993).5 SeeJocelyne Dakhlia, Le divandesrois: lepolitique t le religieux ans 'Islam(Paris, 1998).

6 On relations between Great Britain and the regencies, see Matthew S. Anderson, 'GreatBritainand the BarbaryStatesin theeighteenthcentury', Bulletin fthe nstitutefHistoricalResearch,29 (I956), pp. 87-107, and Godfrey Fisher, Barbary egend:war, tradeandpiracy n NorthAfrica,1415-I830(Oxford, 1957). Between France and Tunis, therewere only three ruptures,in 1741-2,1770, and 1798-I802.

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MUSLIM-CHRISTIAN RELATIONS IN TUNISclerks of the secretaryof state of the marine, then of the ministry of foreignaffairs- interpretedas a particularbody of law. A specificmaritime law thatappliedonly to relations between Muslimsand Christians n the Mediterraneannotably protected people and possessionsof enemies under a neutral flag.7TheMediterranean thus appears an importantfield for the exerciseof principlesofmaritime neutrality that the declaration adopted at the Congressof Paris in1856 wanted to give universalvalidity.8Whereas the Ottoman capitulationswere expresseduntil the eighteenth century as unilateral promisesof security(aman), from the second half of the seventeenth century, in the context of arelationshipof militaryinferiority,the regenciesof Algiers,Tunis, and Tripoliconcluded with the king of France real treaties,sealed and ratified by the twoparties.9

Whereas the control of privateering and the security of the Frenchconcessionsestablished on the coast, above all for the grain trade, remained,in the eighteenth century, at the centre of Franco-Algerian negotiations,relationswith the Regency of Tunis consisted of more varied exchanges thatbrought European traders and the urban elites closertogether. Limited at thebeginning of the eighteenth century to France, Great Britain, and theNetherlands, the treaty relations of the Regency of Tunis spread, however,duringthe century, to theEmpire,Sweden,Denmark, Venice, Spain, Portugal,and the United States. Some states of the Italian peninsulaexcepted, the mainChristianstatesmaintainedat the end of the centurypeacefulrelationswith theBeylikof Tunis. In this relatively small country, governed from the beginningof the eighteenth century by a dynasty of princeswho retainedthe formal titleof Ottoman provincial governors (beys) in spite of a large degree of autonomyof the Porte, it is possibleto observemore clearly than elsewherethe evolutionof diplomatic practice.In Tunis, privateeringhad also been an importantsource of material profitsat the time of its apogee in the first half of the seventeenthcentury. Understoodasa maritime formofdjihad,t contributeduntil the beginningof the nineteenthcentury to the legitimizationofbeylical power. Limited by the capitulationsofthe Porte and, from the second half of the seventeenth century, by additionaltreatiesdirectlywith theRegency, privateeringdid not preventtheincreasinglyclose commercial relations that bound the ports of MediterraneanEurope- notably Marseilles and Leghorn - with Tunis. Privateering itself

7 See, for example, Sartine to Vergennes, Versailles, 28 Nov. I774, Paris,Archives Nationales(AN), AE BI 1145, fos. 3iV-I 2r.8 The Mediterranean practice of these principles, well known to historians of commerce, iswidely ignored by historiansof international law. This is a good example of how the perception ofthe international order as a system of relations between states constructed from Europe hasobscured the memory of the pre-existing plural Mediterranean diplomatic order.9 See the Franco-Tunisian treatiesof 25 Nov. 1665, 30 Aug. and 4 Sept. 1685, French versionsin Eugene Plantet, ed., Correspondanceesbeysde Tuniset desconsuls eFrance vec a Cour,1577-i830(3 vols., Paris, 1893-9), I,pp. 182-90, 268-73, 349-57, 366-9. On the treaties see Yvan Debbasch,La Nationfranfaise n Tunisie, 577-1835 (Paris, 1957), pp. I3-30.

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CHRISTIAN WINDLERnourished this trade,because the Christiantradersdid not missthe opportunityto acquire captured goods under favourable conditions.10From the second half of the eighteenth century, the political and economicpenetration of the Ottoman Empire and the Maghrebi regencies by theEuropeanpowersentered, in an increasinglyacute way, into the conscience ofEuropean contemporarieswho began to reflect on the 'EasternQuestion'. Thecession of the Crimea by the Russo-Ottoman Peace of 1774 also revivedwithin the Ottoman elitesdebates on the measuresrequiredto assurethe futureof the Empire."1Under the reignof Selim III (1789- 807), the introductionofWestern forms of organization and techniques spread to diplomacy. Theestablishment of permanent representations n the main Western capitals andof a specializedadministration that formed the core of a foreignaffairsministryled to the integration of the Ottoman Empire into a diplomatic system basedon the reciprocity of interstate relations, a process which supposed theacceptance of Western legal concepts.'2Relations between the European powers and the Regency of Tunis tookplace in the same context. During the second half of the eighteenth century,signsof the Regency's growing dependency in relation to European economiccentres becameincreasinglyclear. Whereas Tunisian handicrafts- notably theproduction of shashiyyawoollen caps, exported to the Levant) - then under-went externalcompetitionthat they could not seeoffby the mechanization andrationalization of production, its share of grain and olive oil exports increasedconsiderably. In the i780s, French traders enjoyed in Tunis a predominantposition. The Regency received manufactured products of fairly currentconsumptionand it exportedbulkagriculturalproducts,wheat, and, above all,olive oil. The developing economic dependence was accompanied by socialtransformationsn favourof those who participatedin trade with the Europeanports, that is to say the beylical family and its entourage as well as rich Arabfamiliesof traders,tax-farmers,holders of beylical monopolies, contractorsforthe supplying of goods and services, financiers, and power-brokers in theprovinces.1310 See Taoufik Bachrouch, Formation sociale barharesque t pouvoir a Tunis au XVIIe siecle (Tunis,1977); Sadok Boubaker, LaRegencee TunisauXVIIe siecle: sesrelations ommercialesvec esportsdel'Europemediterraneenne,Marseillet LivourneZaghouan, 1987); Mohammed Hedi Cherif,Pouvoir tsocie'teans a TunisiedeHusaynbin'Ali;1705-1740 (2 vols., Tunis, I984-6). On the symbolism ofthe maritime djihadn Algiers, see Houari Touati, EntreDieu etles hommes:ettres,aintsetsorciers uMaghreb (17e siecle) (Paris, 1994), pp. 62--5.11 See Virginia H. Aksan, An Ottomantatesmann war andpeace:AhmedResmiEfendi,1700-1783(Leiden,995); StanfordJayShaw, Between ldandnew:theOttomanmpire nder elim II, I789-1807(Cambridge, MA, 1971).12 Carter Vaughn Findley, Bureaucraticeformn the Ottoman mpire: heSublime orte,1789-I922(Princeton, NJ,I980), pp. 126-40; idem, Ottoman civil officialdom: a social history (Princeton, NJ,1989).13 Khater Chater, Dependancet mutationsrecoloniales:a Regencee Tunisde i8r5 a 1857 (Tunis,1984). Leon CarlBrown, The TunisiaofAhmad ey,1837--855(Princeton,NJ, 1974), pp. 79--91,onthe Tunisian familiesof tradersand intermediaries.On the tradebetweenSfax and the Levant, seeAli Zouari, Les relationsommercialesntre faxet le Levant uxXVIIIe etXIXe siecles Tunis, 1990).

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MITSITM- CHRISTIAN RELATIONS IN TUNISWhereas the short Franco-Tunisian war of I770 ended with compromise,the naval expeditions against the 'Barbaresques' after I815 revealed a newbalance of forces decidedly in favour of the European powers.14 In Tunis, the

news of the conquest of Algiers was received ambiguously: the event rid theHusaynites of a neighbour with whom they had always maintained relationsof distrust, or even of outright hostility. On the other hand, the conquest ofthese Muslim lands by a Christian power raised indignation amongst thesubjects of the Beylik of Tunis. The French intervention in Algiers wasaccompanied in Tunis by interference, demonstrations of the overturning of anequilibrium that had assured the autonomy of the Beylik. From 1830, the beyhad to sign a treaty with France that summarized his renunciation of everythingthat in the European view had made singular his relations with the Maghreb:privateering, presents or tributes, Christian slavery, monopolies exercised bythe Beylik on exports.15

IIAs Simona Cerutti underlined, in referring to research on justice andarbitration, the 'rule-centred paradigm' cannot provide a convincing answerto the question of understanding how norms are created. It is necessary to lookto the social processes where norms are produced and made real: 'It is not aquestion of confronting step by step norms and behaviour, but rather ofanalysing the "legal spaces" that are created through practice.'16 Theseobservations are also applicable to the study of diplomacy, where every normrests on past or present negotiations. The Ottoman capitulations and theMaghrebi treaties created some temporary ties intergentes,while the Europeanius gentiumwas founded on natural law and the existence of universal norms,shared by all contractors.17 Can one, for all that, reduce to treaty norms the law

14 See Mohammed Hedi Cherif, 'Expansion europ6enne et difficultes tunisiennes de I815 a1830', AnnalesESC, 25 (I970), pp. 714-45.15 Treaty of 8 Aug. 1830, French version in Plantet, Correspondance,II, pp. 704-7. A similartreatywas imposed on the Regency of Tripoli, see the Frenchversion in Edgard Rouard de Card,Traitesde a France vecespaysdel'Afrique uNJord:Algerie,Tunisie,Tripolitaine,Maroc(Paris, 1906),pp. 288-93. For analysisof the conquest of Algiers by Tunisian historiographersof the nineteenthcentury: Ahmed Abdesselem, Leshistoriensunisiens esXVIIeme,XVIIIeme t XIXeme iecles: essaid'histoire culturelle (Tunis and Paris, I973), pp. 304-5, 366-7.16 'I1 ne s'agirait pas de confronterpas h pas les normes et les comportements, mais plutotd'analyser les "espacesjuridiques" qui se cr6ent a travers la pratique' (Simona Cerutti, 'Normeset pratiques,ou de la legitimitede leur opposition', in BernardLepetit, ed., Lesformes e 'experience:une autrehistoire ociale(Paris, 1995), pp. I27-49, at pp. I3I-2). Cerutti's reflectionsfollow, inparticular, the following authors: FredrikBarth,Process ndformn social ife: selectedssays fFredrikBarth London, 98 ); John L. Comaroffand Simon Roberts, Rulesandprocesses:heculturalogicofdisputen theAfricancontext(Chicago and London, 1981); Sally Falk Moore, Law as process:ananthropologicalpproachLondon and Boston, 978); idem, Socialfacts ndfabrications:customary'awonKilimanjaro,88o-i980 (Cambridge, 1986).

17 Guido Komatsu, 'Die Turkei und das europaische Staatensystem im i6. Jahrhundert.Untersuchungen zu Theorie und Praxis des neuzeitlichen Volkerrechts', in Christine Roll, ed.,RechtundReich m ZeitalterderReformation: estschriftiir HorstRabe(Frankfurtam Main, 1996),pp. 12 -44, at pp. 140, 143.

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CHRISTIAN WINDLERthat applied to Franco-Tunisian relations, as legal historians have postu-lated ?18

As we have already underlined, consuls, clerks, and secretaries of stateaffirmed, in the eighteenth century, the existence of a particular Barbaresquemaritime law. Yet, with a certain irritation, consuls noted that theirinterlocutors did not grant the same importance to acts that they themselvesconsidered to have created norms. They underlined, in particular, that treatiesand custom each had a different status. Many aspects of diplomatic practicewere not fixed in any treaty. Thus, regarding the treaties between Great Britainand Tunis, the British consul, Perkins Magra, wrote in I79i: 'As to ourmiserable treaties, they are so very improvident, ill-explained, and badlytranslated, that they are only calculated to mislead a consul, and govern moreby the customs they have produced, than by their literal import.'19 Custom,that is to say precedents retained by the common memory ofinteractors, tookprecedence over the text of treaties, either validated or invalidated by practicesthat reflected the capacity of each interactor to force his interpretation of asituation on others.

Consuls to the Maghreb often expressed the fear that a gesture could give riseto custom that would modify contractual norms. Rules of conduct derived theirstrength from the regularity of their affirmation. Consuls seized on oppor-tunities that presented themselves to require the application of contractualnorms and to oppose contraventions susceptible to annul them. Theseopportunities to affirm the order of relations were not necessarily frequent,however. This explains, as Erving Goffman postulates in an entirely differentcontext,20 the importance of the many small ceremonies that reminded each ofthe interactors of his duties: linguistic usage, the formal ceremonial ofaudiences, notably the obligation of consuls to kiss the hand of the bey, and thepractices of private visits, by which interlocutors internalized also the balanceof reciprocal relations. Rather than explain the behaviour of actors in terms oftheir conformity or their unsuitability to a system of norms external to theirpractices, the question is to see

how inter-cultural diplomacy constituted andredefined itself through processes of interaction, with its categories of perceptionand appreciation, its practices, and its specific norms.

18 See Mossner, Die Volkerrechtspersonlichkeit,. 170.19 Magra to Nepean, Tunis, 14 Sept. I79I, PRO, FO 77/3, fo. 205V.20 See Erving Goffman, Interactionitual. essaysonface-to-faceehavior2nd edn, London, 1972),pp. 90o-- cf. idem, Relationsnpublic:microstudiesf thepublicorderNew York, I972), pp. 62-94.

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MUSLIM-CHRISTIAN RELATIONS IN TUNIS

IIITo speak of the universality of the French language in eighteenth-centuryEuropean diplomacy is a receivedidea.21Yet, if it is true that French was usedmore often than any other language, the reality is more complex. Mediter-ranean diplomacy escaped the predominance of the French language. FromConstantinopleto the Maghreb, Italian remained,until the first decades of thenineteenth century, the main language in oral communications.22Recentresearchon Christian convertsto Islam has uncovered men who were probablybetter preparedthan othersto understandthe language and way of thinkingofthe Europeanswho went to theMaghreb.23To transmit news ororders,consulsand the beylical authorities resorted by preference to converts. Theyaccompanied Europeanvisitorsduring their stay in Tunis and served the beysas secretariesand translators.However, to presentconverts as brokersbetweenculturesthat were otherwiseinsulatedand governed by fixed 'grammars', is toignore a story consisting of constant exchanges. Knowledge of a more or lesspidginized Italian (called linguafranca)was widespreadamong the elites of theRegency, who participated in the exchange networksthroughwhich goods andmen circulatedin the Mediterranean.24Mameluks of Levantineorigin,such asMustafa khudja, principal minister of All (i759-82) and Hammuda bey(I782-I814), but also all of the Husaynite beys, mastered Italian andsurprised their more or less unwitting European interlocutors with theirexpertise in communication.In travellers'accounts,asin reportsof naval officersorin consulardispatches,the fact that the language barrier- Arabic and Turkish- could be overcomeby the ease ofcommunicatingin Italian was quiteemblematic.Representationsof a strange and distant universe were contradicted by a feeling of proximitymaintained by the ease of direct oral communications. Thus, in Peyssonnel'sdescription of his first audience with Husayn bin'All bey (I705-35/40) inI724, at which the consul had presented him, one finds, on the one hand, adetailed explanation of an unaccustomed ceremonial, and, on the other, the

21 See Ferdinand Brunot, Histoirede la languefranfaise esorigines nosjours, iII: Lefranfaishorsde France uXVIIIesiecle,pt 2: L'universalitdnEurope Paris, i967), pp. 799-837, xi: Lefranfaisaudehors ous a Revolution,e Consulat t l'Empire,pt 2: Lefranfais au dehors ous e Consulat t l'Empire(Paris, I979), pp. 347-8. 22 Ibid., vmII,pt 2, pp. 826-7.23 See BartolomeBennassarand LucileBennassar,LesChretiens'Allah:I'histoirextraordinaireesrenegats,XVIe et XVIIesiecles(Paris, i989); Anita Gonzalez-Raymond, La croixet le croissant:esinquisitionses lesfacea l'Islam,1550-I700(Paris, 1992); Lucia Rostagno, Mifaccio Turco:esperienzeedimmagini ell'Islam elleItalia modernaRome, I983); Lucetta Scaraffia, Rinnegati:per una storiadell'identitaccidentaleRome and Bari, I993).24 On the linguafrancapokenin the portsof the Maghreb until the nineteenthcentury,seeHugoSchuchardt, 'Die Lingua franca', Zeitschriftfiaromanischehilologie,33 (1909), pp. 44I-6I (stillessentialreading), and Guido Cifoletti, IIvocabolarioella inguafrancaPadua, I980), and idem, Lalingua ranca mediterraneaPadua, I989). The term 'lingua franca' originally referred to theMediterranean pidgins; it later acquired the generic meaning that it has today.

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CHRISTIAN WINDLERsurprise of immediate verbal contact, made possible by the bey's knowledge.25With Hammuda bey, consuls and travellers discovered an expertise in inter-cultural communication associated with linguistic knowledge. After his firstaudiences, Delespine de Chateauneuf, consul-general to Tunis from 1787 to179I, notes: 'The young prince combined a fine figure, noble bearing andaffable manners; I heard him speaking with equal facility three differentlanguages [Arabic, Turkish and Italian]. 26Chateaubriand, who was receivedbyHammfda bey in 1807, noted in his Itinerairede Paris a Jerusalem: 'Thecurrent bey is a clever man ... This prince speaks Italian, converses spiritedly,and understands the politics of Europe better than most Orientals.'27 Britishcontemporaries shared this judgement. The plenipotentiary who, in 1796,came to negotiate the recognition of British sovereignty over Corsica observed,indignant, the skill with which Hammida bey passed from Arabic to Italianand pretended, as the case arose, that he did not understand what was beingsaid to him.28

Changes of linguistic usage did not primarily correspond to modifications atthe level of the personal competences of interactors. They reflected the visionthat these had of their reciprocal relations, they expressed and affirmed thetransformation of norms, the degrees and fields of concessions made byinterlocutors.

Before analysing these evolutions, it is necessary to set out the linguistic usagewithin the beylical court. The foundation by the beys - the commanders of thecamps (mahalla) in charge of administering justice and levying tributes outsideTunis and the coastal towns - of two successive dynasties, in the middle of theseventeenth century, then from 1705, meant the advent of a locally deep-rootedmonocratic power, quite different from the non-dynastic power of the Turkishmilitia in Algiers who collectively co-opted the deys and lived more separatedfrom the local Arab elites. The Husaynite beys, born and brought up in Tunis,were in close contact with Arab urban notables and adopted their language fororal communications.

Yet, in the eighteenth century, the documents of beys to European powerswere almost always written in Turkish.29 The predominance of the Turkish25Jean-Andre Peyssonnel, Voyage ans es regences eTunisetd'Alger, d. Lucette Valensi (Paris,

1987), P. 54.26 Delespine de Chateauneufto Castries,Tunis, 16 Feb. 787, AN, AE B' I152: 'Lejeune princejoint a une belle figure un maintien noble et des manieres affables; e l'ai entendu parler avec uneegale facilite trois langues differentes[Arabic, Turkish, and Italian].'27 'Le bey actuel est un homme habile ... Ce prince parle italien, cause avec esprit,et entendmieux la politique del'Europe que la plupartdes Orientaux' (Francois-Renede Chateaubriand,Itinerairede Paris a Jerusalem [18I i], ed. Emile Malakis (2 vols., Baltimore, I946), at n, p. 253).28 Journal of the Proceedings of my Embassy to the Court of Tunis, 2 Mar. 1796, signed:

Waldegrave, PRO, FO 20/I0.29 See the originals in the volumes of consular correspondence n the AN and the Archives duMinistere des Affaires Etrangeres,Paris (MAE). Cf.Jean-Michel Venture de Paradis, 'Reponsesaux questionsde Raynal', in idem, Tuniset Alger uXVIIIe siecle:memnoirestobservations,d.JosephCuoq (Paris, 1983), p. 26.

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MUSLIM-CHRISTIAN RELATIONS IN TUNISlanguage in documents that the bey authorized was a manifestation of theformalrecognitionof the suzeraintyof the Ottoman sultan.The Porteonly con-sidered itself bound by the Turkish version of the capitulations. The parallelwriting of treatieswith the regenciesin the respectivelanguages of the parties,in which each only signed the version written in his own language, indicatedthat each of the interlocutors bound himself under his own legal order.Certainly, the European powers had versionswritten in their own language,but in case of divergence it is the Turkishtext that was followed. At the end ofthe eighteenth century, French, English, and Spanish diplomacy was stillresignedto this situation. Some documentswere written as one-sidedpromisesof security (amdn).Such is the case for the truce negotiated inJanuary I786 infavourof the kingof Spain that wasonly sealedin its Turkishoriginal.30On theother hand, Franco-Tunisian treaties were characterizedby their reciprocityof form.31 Linguistic usage- the writing in Turkish of the authoritativeversion- contributedto the formulationof a positionmorein line with Muslimlegal conceptions. In extending the requirementfor Turkish or Arabic to allexchanges written with the Christians, the beys reaffirmedan interpretationthat in reality was becoming obsolete, according to which treaties were one-sided concessions in favour of a minority of Christians that solicited theirprotection.Indeed, at the end of the eighteenthcenturythe beysstill askedthat writingspresented in the name of European governments were accompanied byTurkishor Arabic translations.As we saw, in oral negotiations, the beys dealtwith the consuls in Italian. However, when it was a question of exchangingsome written propositions, they would often be refused if they were nottranslatedinto Turkish or Arabic.32The rigour with which this requirementwas enforced depended on the circumstances. In I774, Ali bey allowed theconsul, as a special favour contrary to the custom of the public audience, toread to him, and to translate into Italian, letters, written in French, in whichLouis XVI and the secretaryof state for the marine announced the death ofLouis XV.33 On the other hand, in 1794, still not having received satisfactionfor prizes made against Tunisians on the coasts of France, the son of'All bey,Hammida, sent back a letter of the French minister of foreign affairsconcerning the new flag of the Republic, while requiringthat the consul havea literal translationdone in Turkishor Arabic by the dragoman, even thoughthe letter had been read and explainedto him by hisprincipal physician.34This

30 Truce of 25 Jan. 1786, Madrid, Archivo Hist6rico Nacional (AHN), Estado, leg. 3408.31 See above, p. 3.32 Barthelemyde Saizieu to the Compagnie d'Afrique,Tunis, 3 Mar. 1768, AN, AE BI I I42, fo.i53r; Devoize to Talleyrand, Tunis, 12 niv6se an VI [I Jan. I798], in Plantet, ed., Correspondance,"I, p. 339.33 Barthelemyde Saizieu to Bourgeoisde Boynes, Tunis, 6June 1774,AN, AE B 1145,fo. 238v.34 Devoize to Deforgues, Tunis, 12 prairial an II [3I May i794], MAE, CCC, Tunis, vol. 32,fo. I8Ir.

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CHRISTIAN WINDLERexample illustrates that the requirement to present documents written inTurkish or Arabic was not a practical necessity, but was aimed at pushing aparticular interpretation of relations with Europeans: circumstances of warallowed the bey to reaffirm by linguistic usage the unilateral nature of theserelations.

Linguistic usage did not conform to what was most convenient to theinterlocutors. The beys had a poor understanding of documents written inTurkish. When, in 1757, Muhamnad bey received letters from the king andthe secretary of state for the marine, written in French and accompanied byTurkish translations, he read these translations, but finished by returning theFrench versions to the consul, 'asking [him] to explain them to him in linguafrancato see if he had understood the Turkish language well, that he understoodbut imperfectly.'35However, one could not consider linguistic usage to be an obstacle tocommunication, since for all interactors it had itself meaning and reaffirmednorms. An anecdote brought back by one of Hamnfida bey's physicians,Louis Frank, at once confirms the prince's interest in communication that hadnot passed through the medium of an interpreter, and reveals the symbolic roleof linguistic usage: according to Frank the bey wanted to learn to read andwrite 'pure Tuscan Italian' ('l'italien pur-toscan'). To believe the doctor'sdescription, the full symbolic significance of this training stood in the way of therealization of this project: 'the religious leaders' ('les chefs de la religion')would have him desist from this study, which they held to be 'unworthy of aMuslim prince' ('indigne d'un prince musulman').36

Transformations, even apparently minor ones, were thus particularlymeaningful. Once Husayn bin 'All bey, exceptionally, sent to the Frenchconsul a letter written in Italian and dated according to the Christiancalendar.37 An isolated instance, this practice expressed a special favour withregard to a consul, but, from the second half of the eighteenth century,indications of a modification of linguistic usage increased. In a regular manner,Mustafa khfudja, principal minister of 'All and Hammuida bey-but notthe latter themselves - addressed letters, written in Italian by his secretary,dated solely according to the Christian calendar and provided with his seal, tothe French and British consuls.38

"3 Grou de Sulauze to Peyrencde Moras, Tunis, 15 Sept. 1757, AN, AE B' II39: 'priant de leslui expliquer en petit moresque pour voir s'il les avait bien comprises en langue turque, qu'iln'entend qu'imparfaitement'.36 LouisFrank, 'Tunis, descriptionde cette R6gence [1816], par le Dr -, ancien medecin du beyde Tunis, du Pacha de Jannina, et de 'arrneed'Egypte, revue et accompagnee d'un precishistorique et d'eclaircissements tires des ecrivains orientaux, par J[ean] J[oseph] Marcel', in

L'Univers ittoresquehistoire tdescriptione tous espeuples, e eurs eligions,moeurs,outumes,ndustries,etc.Afrique,VII(Paris, 1862), pp. 1--224, at p. 70.37 Husayn bin 'All bey to Bayle, 7 Apr. I718, AN, AE BI II29.38 PRO, FO 335/32/12--17, FO 77/3, fos. I49r, I83r-v, i99r-v; AN, AE B I I48, fo. 38r-v, AEBI 1149.

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MUSLIM-CHRISTIAN RELATIONS IN TUNISEven after 1830the bey sealed documents writtenin Italian only very rarely.However, already by the beginning of the nineteenth century, HIammudabeyused as his secretaryfor Italian correspondencea Neapolitan slave, MarianoStinca, who became both rich, through trade, and influential, thanks to hisrelationswith his master. Stinca wrote in Italian to the consulsto communicateto them decisions that the bey dictated to him in linguarancaor in Arabic.39Modifications in linguistic practice reinforced,from the reign of'All bey andthe ascension of Mustafa khfdja as principal minister, the influence ofItalian secretarieswho, for their part, gave a new importance to the writtenword in the relations between the Tunisian court - the Bardo- and the consuls

that had until then been nearly exclusively oral. On the death of MarianoStinca in I814, Mahmud bey, out of respect for 'former custom' ('l'ancienusage') refused to respondin writing to the consuls' letters to him. The latters'protests obliged him, however, to give up the project of dealing again withall business orally during his audiences. In relation to the custom invokedby the bey, the practice of Mustafa khfidja and the Italian secretaries ofHammfida bey had established new norms henceforth obligatory, not only asfaras the choice of the language wasconcerned,but also in the mannerofdoingbusiness.40Furthermore, with the language, formulas of politeness andhonorary titles were adopted that assimilated the Bardo with the courts ofEurope. Hammuda bey was addressed as 'Sua Eccellenza' but also onoccasion the forms 'Regno di Tunisi' and 'Reggio Palazzo del Bardo' wereused.41During the reign of Husayn bey (1824-35), the honour title 'SuaAltezza', that was applied in Europe to princes of blood, replaced 'SuaEccellenza', a title henceforth reserved for ministers of the bey.42Under the successors of Hammuda bey-Mahmfid bey (1814-24),jHusayn bey (1824-35) and Mustafa bey (I835-7)-a free Sardinian,Giuseppe Raffo, son of a watchmaker born in Tunis in I795, served asintendant and secretaryfor Italian correspondence.Through the marriage ofone of his sisters, he became the brother-in-law of Mustafa bey. When thebey'sson and successor,Ahmad bey (I837-55), began, at the end of the i83os,organizing a foreign affairs department, the barely specialized embryo of aministry,he confided the management of it to his Sardinianuncle.43Raffo took

39 A register containing copies of part of the active and passive correspondenceof MarianoStinca with the consuls (years I8Io to I814) figuresamong his personal papers conserved in theNational Archives of Tunisia (carton 8I, dossier 980). On Mariano Stinca, see Habib Jamoussi,'Mariano Stinca: image d'un esclave au pouvoir sous le regne de Hammouda-Pacha bey', Revued'HistoireMaghrebine,3 (1996), pp. 431-71.40 Oglander to Exmouth, Tunis, 22 July, 22 Aug. and 22 Oct. 1815, PRO, FO 77/6, fos.I83r-4v, i88v-9or.41 Declaration of Hammfda bey on the subjectof the trevewith Portugal, Bardo, IJan. 1794,PRO, FO 77/4, fo. 3r.42 Correspondenceof Giuseppe Raffo with Thomas Reade, i827, 1830, I832, I835, PRO, FO335/53/9 and io, FO 335/56/3 to 6, FO 335/57/i6 to I9, FO 335/63/3 and 4.43 Jean Ganiage, Uneentreprisetalienne e Tunisie umilieuduXIXesiecle:correspondanceommercialede a thonaire eSidi Daoud(Paris, I960), p. 7; Mongi Smida, Consuls tconsulats eTunisie uIgesiecle

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CHRISTIAN WINDLERadvantage of his close relations with the bey to advance commercial operationsof a monopolistic character - in tuna fishing, in supplying provisions to coral-fishers, and olive oil exports.44 Under the predecessor of Ahmad bey,Mustafa bey, Raffo had presented himself as 'secretary for foreign relations'of the bey of Tunis ('segretario per le relazioni estere di S. A. il Bascia Bey deTunisi'),45 but his influence was already such that his European interlocutorsreferred to him as 'minister' and accorded him special treatment.46 On theirconsuls' recommendation, the governments of several Italian states and that ofFrance conferred on him honours, 'without any apparent reason', other than,as the British consul underlined, the intention to win the influential secretaryover to their interests: in I833, he received a Neapolitan decoration, in I836,the Legion d'honneur, the Sardinian Order of Saint Maurice and SaintLazare, and the papal title of Knight of Saint Gregory.47 Giuseppe Rafforemained a Christian; in his apartment in the Bardo the prince of Puckler-Muskau noticed in I835 some Catholic images.48 He presented himself asprotector and benefactor of the Catholic parish of Tunis.49 Services rendered toSardinian subjects led to his ennoblement, in I85I, by the king of Sardinia.After the death of his first wife, a Genoese woman from Tunis, he remarried inI854 to the daughter of the marquis Ripa di Meana, a retired cavalry colonel.His mediation services at the beylical court therefore, in this certainlyexceptional case, led to Raffo's promotion to the nobility of his country oforigin.50Before even the formal organization of a foreign affairs department byAhmad bey, the Italian mediators were much more than simple secretaries:men enjoying the personal confidence of the bey and, at the same time,privileged interlocutors of the consuls; they filled functions that their Europeaninterlocutors associated with those of a secretary of state or a foreign ministerof a European government. Whereas the bey continued to maintain the use ofTurkish, replaced by Arabic from the first decades of the nineteenth century,in writings bearing his seal, the generalized use of Italian in correspondence

(Tunis, 1991), p. i8; Andreas Tunger-Zanetti, La communicationntreTuniset IstanbulI86o---9I3.provincetmetropoleParis, 1996), p. 50.44 On the thonaire of the Raffo family on the coast of Cap Bon, that by beylical concessionremained in the hands of the family from I826 to I90I, see Ganiage, Uneentreprisetalienne.45 Raffo to Cardinal Franzoni, Tunis, 20 June 1836, Rome, Archives of the Congregatio dePropaganda Fide (PF), SC, Barbaria,vol. I5, fo. II8r.46 P. Luigi da Taggia to CardinalFranzoni, Tunis, io Apr. 1837, PF, SC, Barbaria,vol. I5, fo.I69r.47 Reade to Palmerston, 'unis, 30 July I836, PRO, FO 77/29; Rizo to Alvarez Mendizabal,Tunis, Io May and 5 June I836, AHN, Estado, leg. 8369.

48 [Hermann Ludwig Heinrich Piickler-Muskau],SemilassonAfrika,DritterTeil: Biserta,Tunis(Stuttgart, 1836), pp. I88-9.4 P. Luigi daTaggia to CardinalFranzoni, Tunis, io Apr. I837, 4Jan. 1838,and Io Apr. 1839,PF, SC, Barbaria,vol. I5, fos. I69r, 236r, 4I4r-v.0 CGaniage, Une entreprise talienne, pp. 8--9.

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MUSLIM-CHRISTIAN RELATIONS IN TUNISwritten in his name by a European, reflected and affirmed an increasingimbalance in relations in favour of the European powers. In daily contactslinguistic usage was thus creating norms that transcendedit.

IVIn the courts of Europe, diplomatic representatives,who were invested as suchby theirsovereignprinceorstate, merited,within the limitsof theirinstructions,the considerationdue to that sovereignwhose proxy they were, although heretoo a symbolicimbalance derivedfrom the fact that contact was not direct, buttook place between a prince and the representativef anotherprince.51 n Tunis,the consuls and the extraordinary envoys faced a society that refused as amatter of principle the reciprocity of relations with infidels. As leaders ofChristian nations or bodies of traders, consuls participated in ceremonies ofpower at the Bardo palace. It was difficult to obtain a ceremonial thatdistinguishedconsuls and envoys as representativesof a sovereign of equal, oreven superior,rank.Until around 1830, most consulsnegotiated arrangementsthat respectedthe frameworkof the ceremonial of the beylical court, but whichnevertheless ntroduced some considerablemodifications.After the conquestofAlgiers, two dramatic transformations symbolized the new imbalance: theabolition of the 'tributes, presents, giftsand any otherdues' ('tributs,presents,dons et autres redevances quelconques') by the Franco-Tunisian Treaty ofAugust I83052and, in 1836, the refusalby the French consul to kiss the handof the bey, followed by its abolition for all consuls by Mustafa bey.Before I830 the question is to know how interlocutors negotiated subtlerearrangementsof the ceremonial and how they associated therein their owninterpretation that, adapted to their system of values, allowed them to'maintain face'. Judging by some testimoniesof the eighteenth century, theywere often capable of getting on by mutually acceptable interactionpractices.Thus, according to Thomas Shaw who visited Tunis in the reign of Husaynbin 'All, and accompanied the British consul during visits to the Bardo: 'Allaffairs ... with the Regency are transacted in such a friendlyand complaisantmanner, that it was no small pleasure to attend Mr Consul Lawrence at hisaudiences. '53Unlike Ottoman ceremonial that exalted the sultan'smajestywhile limitinghis public appearances, the ceremonial of the Maghrebi courts required thatthe prince be visible to his subjects.54It seems, if one looks at the works of

51 William W. J. Roosen, 'Early modern diplomatic ceremonial: a systemsapproach', Journalof ModernHistory,52 (1980), pp. 452-76, at pp. 455-6. 52 See above, p. 5.53 Thomas Shaw, Travels,orobservationsrelating oseveralparts of Barbary nd theLevant Oxford,I738), p. 155.54 Whereas numerous works have studied the ceremonials of the European ancien regime, thehistoriographyof the Muslim world has onlyjust startedto look at the symbolic gesturesby whichaspirationsto exercisepolitical and religiousauthoritywere expressed.However, lately, the worksof Giilru Necipoglu on the Ottoman court (see the following note), of Paula Sanders on Fatimid

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CHRISTIAN WIND FLERJocelyne Dakhlia, that the ostentatious features of humility, that expressedrespect for Divine Law, can be linked with the prince's need constantly torenegotiate the allegiance of each group of his subjects, since their adherence tothe dynastic continuity was not acquired in advance. The immediate characterofjustice was, in the Muslim tradition of the Maghreb, one of the conditions ofthe legitimacy of princely power. The devout ruler, who was but one memberof the community of believers, had to remain accessible, so that he could be seenby his subjects administering justice himself, examining cases presented to himwith the qadi-and the mufti. The bey's audiences in the great hall ofjustice of theBardo were open to all subjects. Every morning, the bey meted out justicethere, without pomp. In regions far removed from Tunis, the mahalla ormilitary camps, one in summer, the other in winter, affirmed the authority ofthe ruler by their military character, but also because they implied that theprince was present and visible in his functions as referee and judge.55The opening of audiences for plaintiffs and petitioners had consequences forthe manner in which consuls and envoys could try to distinguish themselves asthe political representatives of their ruler. As leaders of Christian nations,consuls had the right to present themselves every day without formalities - withthe exception of Friday, the day of prayer - at audiences with the bey and tosubmit to him complaints and pendingjudicial affairs. Whereas, in the Levant,consuls dealt with authorities of the country through the intermediary of theirdragomans, in Tunis, consuls interpreted any interruption in direct contact asa hostile gesture on the bey's part.

During audiences, however, consuls had to mingle with the bey's subjects.The principle of granting to the consuls a specific ceremonial was rejected bythe beylical court. During public ceremonies in the palace of the bey, whichconsuls attended as representatives of their nations, such as the formal

Cairo (Ritual,politicsand hecity n FatimidCairo Albany, NY, 1994)) andJocelyne Dakhlia on theMaghreb (see the following note) have highlighted that ceremonials presented, at once, thetheoreticalsources of authorityof those that govern, and the social networksthat allowed them toexercise such power.55Jocelyne Dakhlia and Lucette Valensi, 'Le spectaclede la cour: elementsde comparaisondesmodes de souveraineteau Maghreb et dans l'Empire ottoman', in Gilles Veinstein, ed., SolimaneMagnifiquet sontemps:actesduColloque eParis. Galeriesrationalesdu GrandPalais, 7-Jo mars1990(Paris, 1992), pp. I45--57, at pp. I46, I48-53;Jocelyne Dakhlia, 'Du sacreduel au sacredebattu:la legitimite en echo des souverainsmaghrebins', Al-Qantara.RevistadeEstudiosArabes,17 (1996),pp. 341---74,at pp. 344--8, 352, and idem, Le divandesrois,pp. 91-2. On the mahalla, ee idem,'Dans la mouvance du prince: la symbolique du pouvoir itinerant au Maghreb', AnnalesESC,43(i988), pp. 735--6. Onjustice in the eighteenthand nineteenth centuries,see Robert Brunschvig,'Justice religieuse et justice laique dans la Tunisie des deys et des beys, jusqu'au milieu du XIXesiecle', Studia slamica, 3 ( 965), pp. 27--70,at pp. 36-54. On the ceremonial of the Ottoman court,see Gulru Necipoglu, Architecture,eremonial,ndpower:theTopkapi alace n theifteenth ndsixteenthcenturiesNew York and Cambridge, MA, I99I), especially pp. 15---22: the exterior walls of theTopkapi Palace, followed by a successionof gates, separated the sultan'scourt from the city. Thereclusionof the sultan was aimed at exalting his sacredcharacter,rather than assuringhissecurity.

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MUSLIM-CHRISTIAN RELATIONS IN TUNISinvestiture of the bey by the sultan's representative, their subordination asinfidels was expressedby the inferior rankthat they occupied with theirnationin the act of kissingthe hand. They had not only to mix with the subjectsof thebey, but in addition had to wait until all Muslim subjects had kissed theirprince'shand, before submitting in turn to this ritual. After the investiture ofMahmid bey and his son, Husayn, in 1816, some weeks after the expeditionof Lord Exmouth, the Europeanconsulstogether addressedSulayman kahiya,principalminister and son-in-law of Mahmid bey, to complain about the factthat they saw themselves 'confused with individuals of all classes, and of allnations, requiredto wait until the last servant of the bey had kissed the hand,before being permitted to render him the same homage'.56 In their view, thebey should grant to them the 'just reciprocity' ('juste reciprocite') due inconsideration of 'the most honourable reception' ('la reception la plushonorable') given to Tunisian envoys in the courtsof Europe.However, it wasprecisely this public recognition of a relationship of reciprocity with non-Muslim sovereignsthat met with reluctance. Undoubtedly the consuls knewthis, since they proposed an arrangement that dispensed with their need toparticipatein the kissingof the hand at the same time as the bey's subjects,eventhough they would not be explicitly granted a formal distinction as repre-sentatives of rulers of, at least, equal rank. They asked for and got theauthorization to present themselves only on the day following the publicceremonies as well as the concessionof a 'comfortable and decent apartment'('un appartement convenable et decent') where they could wait for themoment to present themselves to the bey without mingling with the otherpetitioners. By this last arrangement,one gets backto a solutionclose to the oneadopted by Mustafa khfidja, who, as favourite and principal minister of Alland Hammuda bey, welcomed consuls in his house 'with a politeness thatwon him the hearts of all' ('avec cette politesse qui lui gagnait tous lescoeurs').57Difficultieswere thereforecircumventedthrough a by-passstrategythat maintained appearances,whilst profoundlymodifyingthe meaning of theceremonialsinceconsulswere now physicallyseparatedfromTunisiansubjects.Under the ancien regime, the diversity of the legal situations thatcharacterizedrelations between Europeansand Maghrebis, but also betweenEuropeans residing in Tunis, corresponded to the plurality of status andjurisdictions n Europe.In 1816,this wasseenasproblematic.This modificationof perceptions was linked to the shift in European political cultures thatpostulated the legal equalityofcitizens and states.While adopting a simpleanddirect style, conforming to reason, French revolutionariesconsecrated a newsymbolic repertoire of power. As with republican imagery,58 the symbolic

56 Consuls to Sulayman kahiya, Tunis, 22 Aug. I8i6, AN, 327 AP 14: 'confondus avec desindividus de toutes les classes, et de toutes les nations, soumis a attendre que jusques au dernierserviteur du bey lui euitbaise la main, avant d'etre admis a lui rendre le meme hommage'.57 Ibid.58 Maurice Agulhon, Marianneau combat:I'imageriet la symboliqueepublicainese I789 a I880(Paris, 1979).

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representation of power in festivals,59 or language and gesture,60 so alsodiplomatic ceremonial shaped the new political legitimacy. These trans-formations have received a great deal less analysis than manifestations ofrevolutionary culture within France, although the redefinition of externalrelations with surrounding hostile monarchies also interested revolutionarieswho aspired to a universal mission.61 Franco-Muslim diplomacy is not takeninto account in the few works produced to date on the ceremonial of theexternal relations of the French Republic. However, cultural differencesconditioned revolutionary diplomacy. The Tunisian context required aparticular interpretative and creative effort from the representatives of theRepublic, the analysis of which guards against the tendency of culturalanthropology to insist on the stationary and coherent character of culture as asystem of signs and symbols either shared or refused.62 The political culture ofthe Revolution appears here rather like an inventive practical modality forconceiving social experiences, permitting a redefinition, according to cir-cumstances, of situations of interaction.63Revolutionaries agreed on the principle of rejection of diplomatic con-ventions inherited from the ancien regime as well as on the need for symbolsthat expressed a 'system of liberty' and of national sovereignty. Therepresentative forms of the ancien regime had to yield to a ceremonial thatconformed to a diplomacy founded on reason.64 To lead a firm foreign policy,worthy of a sovereign and free nation, and to adapt the usages of this policy toconstitutional principles, challenged the practical knowledge of diplomats,whose social status was, at the same time, threatened.'6 The revolutionaries'pretension of reorganizing society and international relations according touniversally valid principles threatened, at least in theory, the tacit consensus onwhich rested relations between the French and the Maghrebis. The practicewas a lot more complex. The immediate repercussions were limited. Because ofthe difficulties that arose from the wars in Europe, French diplomacy preferredto resolve in a pragmatic way the problems that could emerge through thedaily contacts with the Maghrebis, and had the tendency not to clarify theissues that might provoke discussions.

59 Mona Ozouf, Lafete revolutionnaire, 789-I799 (Paris, 1976).60 Linn Hunt, Politics,culture,ndclass n theFrenchRevolutionBerkeley, 1984).61 Linda Frey and Marsha Frey, "'The reign of the charlatans is over": the Frenchrevolutionaryattack on diplomatic practice', Journal fModernHistory, 5 ( 1993), pp. 706--44, nsistrightly on the interest that diplomatic ceremonial presents.62 From hisreadingof the worksof the anthropologistFredrikBarth,Giovanni Levi has offereda spirited criticism of this tendency of interpretative cultural anthropology (Giovanni Levi, 'Ipericoli del geertzismo', Quadernitorici,n.s., 58 (1985), pp. 269---77).63 See James Clifford, 7-hepredicamentf culture: wentieth-centurythnography,iterature,ndart(Cambridge, MA, 1988), p. 15.64 See Frey and Frey, '"The reign of the charlatans is over"'6 SeeJean Belin, Lalogique 'unedee-force:'idee 'utiliteociale t la Revolutionranfaise, 789---I792(Paris, 1939), pp. 184--8.

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MUSLIM-CHRISTIAN RELATIONS IN TUNISThe rejection, more theoretical than practical, of traditional ceremonialtouched on gestures symbolizing submission, which were considered scan-dalous. In essence this concerned the French consul's obligation to kiss the

hand of the bey, and that of his designated successor,during audiences, asstipulated in 1742 by a secret supplement to the treaty concluded that yearwhich put the Frenchconsulson the samefooting as thoseof the other Christiannations.66Until 1742, the right to greet the bey by raisingthe hat on enteringthe chamber- along with the right to entercarryinghis sword- was one of theprivileges that symbolized the precedence of the consul of the king of Franceover all his colleagues.67 n the ceremonialof the Bardo, the hand-kissmarkedthe submissivenessof subjectswho presentedthemselvesat the audience to thebey.68After the elevation of a new bey the unlucky pretenderskissedhis handas a markofsubmission.69Obliged to participatein the ceremonyofrecognitionof the new ruler and to repeat the gesture of the hand-kiss during everyaudience, consuls saw themselvesassimilatedtherefore to subjectsof the bey.The hand-kissmarked the submissionof infidels to the domination of Islam.'All pasha ( 735-56) precipitatedthe quarrelover the kissingof the hand inI740, when he prevailed over his uncle Husayn bin 'All. In 1741, he razedthe Genoese and French trading-postsat Tabarca and Cabo Negro to theground. 'All pasha symbolically marked his opposition to the policy of peaceand commercial opening toward Europe promoted by his predecessor byrefusing gestures that distinguished consuls from his subjects. Besides theexemption of the hand-kiss,reserved to the French consul, these included theright of consuls to fly their flag on their houses, a sign of exterritoriality.70'All pasha asked for the hand-kissas a public reminder,in contradictionwiththe provisionsand the form of the Franco-Tunisian treaties,of the one-sidedcharacter of the protection they afforded Christianswho accepted submissionto the order of the daral-Isldm,n returnforprivileges,in particularto exercisetheir rite freely and to administer the internal affairs of their communitiesaccording to their particular law. In this regard, it is meaningful that'Allpasha, at all times, assured French traders of his protection.71This was not avain promise: after the break with the king of France in 174I, the corsairs ofTunis besieged French ships, but traders of the French nation in Tunisremained free to continue their business.72As an act of submission,the hand-kisswas acceptable to tradersestablished in Tunis, but raisedthe oppositionofthe consulswho representedtheir sovereign.

66 Treaty of 9 Nov. I742, French version in Plantet, ed., Correspondance,n,pp. 365-6.67 Michel to Pontchartrain, Tunis, 12 Feb. 1712, AN, AE B' I128.68 See Cherif,Pouvoir tsociete, , p. 139, on the entrance of Husayn bey into Tunis in 1706.69 On the election of Uthman bey: Soler to the duke of San Carlos, Tunis, 22 Sept. 1814,AHN, Estado, leg. 6250.70 Gautier to Maurepas, Tunis, 24 Mar. I740. Cf. proces-verbal of the assembly of the Frenchnation of 12 Apr. 1741, AN, AE BI 134. 71 Ibid.72 Crozet to Maurepas, Tunis, I8 Nov. 1741, AN, AE B' 1134.

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CHRISTIAN WINDLERYet, in the decades that followed the conclusion of the treaty of 1742,discussionsraisedby the hand-kissconcerned the subtledifferentiationof rankabove all betweenEuropeans.Inasmuch as the precedenceof the 'Emperor' of

France was assuredconsideringthe ceremonial in its whole, the consul could,if need be, agree to kiss the hand. Europeanswere compelled to this gestureofsubmission according to the rank of their ruler. Unlike the French consuls,protected by the bey like their nation, all officers of the royal French navy,independentlyof their rank,were still excused the hand-kiss.This was not thecasefor officersofotherpowers.Thus, the commanderof two Dutch vessels thathad come to ratify, in I74I, the formerpeace treaties kissed the bey's hand.73In I760, an English officer was prepared to leave without accomplishinghismission,becausehe would not submit to the ceremonialof the kissingof hand.The Britishconsul convinced him to conform, since it was a matter of custom.These subtle distinctionsin the ceremonialwerereportedextremely attentivelyby the consuls and other French observers.74The consuls' opposition to subordinationincreasedas, in Europe, the legalhierarchiesbetween states and the differentlyprivileged corporations ceasedbeing constitutiveof structuresof domination. The considerableprivileges,asassuredto them by the Ottoman capitulationsand the Maghrebi treaties,nolonger compensatedfor the act of submission.Nominated by the committee ofpublic safetyas extraordinarycommissioner to Tunis, Lallement describesthehand-kiss and the conceptions that underlay it as an act unworthy of arepublican:'The etiquettein presentingoneself to the bey is to kisshis hand ...This ceremony displeasesand should displease a republican. I tell you that Irepudiate it absolutely.'75Beaussier,appointed successorto Devoize in 1796,evokes the hand-kissas a 'humiliating piece of etiquetteforrepublicans' ('uneetiquette humiliante pour des republicains'), but respected, like the othernationals, the establishedceremonial.76Most of the Europeanconsuls- including the French- continued to respectthe practice of kissing the hand. A conflict provoked in 1796 by the Britishconsul is interestingfor having inspired the French consul to state clearly hisown pragmatic attitude. Without having warned the bey that he bore the titleof plenipotentiary together with the vice-admiral whom he accompanied,Magra, the Britishconsul,presentedhimselfbeforethe bey and sat down 'withaffectation without kissing the hand' ('avec affectation sans lui baiser lamain'). If he had accepted this behaviour, the bey would have lost face before

73 Crozet to Maurepas, Tunis, i6 Sept. 1741, AN, AE B' I I34.74 Grou de Sulauze to Berryer,Tunis, 8 Mar. 1760, AN, AE BI I I39.75 Lallement to Hermann, Paris, I8 germinal an II [7 Apr. 1794], MAE, CCC, Tunis, vol. 32,fo. i65r: 'L'etiquette en se pr6sentantau bey est de lui baiser la main ... Cette ceremonie deplaitet doit deplaire a un Francais republicain. Je vous avoue que j'y r6pugne singuliirement.' Cf.Beaussierto Delacroix, Tunis, 7 vendemiaire an V [28 Sept. 1796], MAE, CCC, Tunis, vol. 34,fo. 257v.76 Beaussierto Delacroix, Tunis, 7 vendemiaire an V [28 Sept. 1796], MAE, CCC, Tunis, vol.34, fo. 257v.

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MSIT,IM-CHRISTIAN RELATIONS IN TUNIS 97his court and his subjects.Negotiations could not begin until Magra had givenup his title of plenipotentiaryof his majestyto kiss the hand of the bey asconsul.For the French consul, the episode was double-edged: if he was pleased withthe blunder committed by his British colleague, he regretted to have to notethat the hand-kiss had been given a meaning that he himself had avoidedmaking explicit: 'The hand-kiss was considered to be a courtesy and theextravagance of the English consulhas now converted it into submission' ('Lebaise-main etait considere comme une politesse et l'extravagance du consulanglaisvient de la convertir en soumission'). He had preferredto considerthegestureas 'a custom consecratedby time' ('un usageconsacreparle temps').77In 1816, the Britishconsul, Oglander, proposed to his French colleague toagree together not to kiss the hand of Husayn, eldest son of Mahmud bey,during the ceremony in the course of which, in the presence of 'the wholeapparatus ... of sovereignty' ('tout l'appareil ... de la souverainete'), theyoung princehad to receive froman envoy of the Porte the firman of the sultan,and the caftan of investiture to the dignity of bey commanding the camps(mahalla).Devoize having signalled to him the need to consult with hisgovernment beforehand, Oglander, followed by his American colleague,Anderson, limited himself to a slight nod of the head and withdrew.78Such a refusalconformed with the tendency to negate the Other's own law,which, with regard to the law of war, led to the well known resolutions of theCongressesof Vienna and Aix-la-Chapelle against privateeringand Christianslavery. The equality of citizens and states had already become a key issue indiplomacy during the French Revolution, but, from I815, peace in Europecreated betterconditionsfor the Christianconsuls to force their own normsonthe Maghrebis. At the same time, the United States ofAmericabegan to affirmtheir presence and their values on the Mediterranean Christian-Muslimdiplomatic stage. In this context, it is significant that in 1817, the UnitedStates' consul, Anderson, even refused to kiss the hand of Mahmud, thereigningbey. Shaler, consul to Algierswho accompanied Anderson,approvedof his colleague's conduct, while referringexplicitly to norms that governedrelations of powerin the United States:why should consulskissthe hand of thebey, while an American citizendid not even kiss the hand of the presidentof theUnited States?79Direct relationsbetweenthe consulsand the princeswhosehandstheywouldnot kiss were, by this act, interrupted.80It was only in 1836 that, without

77 Devoize to Delacroix, Tunis, 5 vent6se an IV [24 Feb. 1796], MAE, CCC, Tunis, vol. 34,fo. 5IV-2r. Cf.Journal of the Proceedings of my Embassy to the Court of Tunis, 22 Feb. I796,signed: Waldegrave, PRO, FO 20/Io.78 Devoize to Richelieu, Tunis, 2 Apr. I8I7. Cf. Devoize to Richelieu, Tunis, i8 Sept. i817,MAE, CCC, Tunis, vol. 43, fos. I7r-v, 69v.79 Devoize to Richelieu, Tunis, i8 Sept. 1817,MAE, CCC, Tunis, vol. 43, fo. 7or.80 Soler to Cevallos, Tunis, I Aug. I816, AHN, Estado, leg. 6247; Devoize to Richelieu, Tunis,2 Apr. and i8 Sept. i817, MAE, CCC, Tunis, vol. 43, fos. I7r-i8r, 70r-v; Notice sur legouvernement de la regencede Tunis, le caractere des personnagesqui le composent, sesforces,son

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CHRISTIAN WINDLERincurring the risk to jeopardizing his position in the beylical court, the Frenchconsul could refuse 'a piece of etiquette uncommon in the Christian courts andeven in Constantinople' ('une etiquette inusitee dans les cours chretiennes etmeme at Constantinople') and incompatible with 'the dignity of the rep-resentative of the French nation' ('la dignite du representant de la Nationfrancaise') and with 'the position he should hold in Tunis' ('la position qu'ildoit occuper a Tunis').81 This occurred in full court and without notice, as theBritish and Spanish consuls underlined in their reports: when Mustafa beypresented, as usual, his hand to the French consul to be kissed, he was told bythe consul he could withdraw it, since he had orders from his sovereign to makeit known that consuls and all Frenchmen would no longer kiss the hand of thebey of Tunis. The effect of surprise, and the publicity that the refusal got, madethe bey lose face. In the Spanish consul's words, Mustafa bey received theaffront as a 'mortal blow' ('golpe mortal').82 Yet, he understood that theEuropean consuls would not respect any longer the ceremonial of his court. Hehimself generalized the abolition of the hand-kiss.83The modification of the ceremonial was accompanied by military expansion:at the same time, the conquest of Algiers was seen by the Maghrebis as animmediate threat. The consul's behaviour meant the refusal to be subordinateto Muslim conceptions, which continued to express themselves in theceremonial. In contrast, in the Maghreb, the Ottoman capitulations had fromthe end of the seventeenth century given way to bilateral treaties thatcontributed to assuring, with the privileges that they guaranteed, anincreasingly crushing European predominance.The unilateral modification of the ceremonial, which the bey could notprevent, was an element of an aggressive strategy of symbolic domination, aswas also the clause of the Franco-Tunisian treaty of I830 on the abolition ofpresents or tributes of the European powers. The rejection of the non-Europeanceremonial did not imply the formal assimilation of the Regency as a Europeanstate. Yet, the successor of Mustafa bey, Ahmad bey, aspired to thatposition. He would express such a desire while adopting European symbols ofpower: so, he dressed in an European uniform and received consuls sitting ina room furnished in the European style.84 Some deliberate provocations by the

commerce, les consulsqui y residentet les Francaisqui y sont etablis, Paris, Oct. 1820, written byDevoize, AN, 327 AP i.81 Schwebel to Thiers, Tunis, 31 May I836, MAE, CPC, Tunis, vol. 2, fo. I97v. Cf. PierreGrandchamp, 'Suppression du baise-maindes consulsa la cour du bey de Tunis', RevueAfricaine,62 (192I), pp. 335-9.82 Rizo to Alvarez y Mendizabal, Tunis, 31 May I836, AHN, Estado, leg. 8369; Reade toPalmerston, Tunis, 4 and 6 June 1836, PRO, FO 77/29.83 According to Ahmad Ibn Abl al-Diyaf, Present uxhommes e notreemps:chroniqueesroisdeTuniset du PacteFondamental,hapitresV et V,ed. Andre Raymond (2 vols., Tunis, 1994), I, p. 73,Mustafa bey preferredto no longer speak of the affair.84 See Brown, The Tunisiaof AhmadBey,pp. 315-- 6.

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MUSLIM-CHRISTIAN RELATIONS IN TUNISconsuls that went against all diplomatic decorum undermined the bey assovereign; so, in I843, the French consul, having taken offence because thecarriage of Muhammad bey, cousin of the reigning bey, had passed in frontof his carriage, got out and insulted the coachman in Italian, withoutMuhammad bey intervening.85The belated abolition of the kissingof the hand should not encourageone toconclude that ceremonial persisted frozen in form and meaning. Althoughrejections were not dramatic, ceremonial did change appreciably. That onecontinued to performformally a particular gesturedid not preventit changingmeaning. When the consuls acquired in 1816 the privilege not to presentthemselvesat the Bardo until the day aftera public ceremony, the hand-kissnolonger had the same meaning, since, in the ceremonial of the presentationofpower they distinguished themselves henceforth from the bey's subjects.Putting an apartment at their disposition where they could wait for themoment of their audience without mingling with petitionerswho were subjectsof the bey produced the same effect: certainly, the hand-kisscontinued, but ittook on a distinction that had the tendency to neutralize it as a gesture ofsubmission and to assimilate it to an act of simple courtesy, as Devoize hadwanted. The history of an emblematic gesture such as the hand-kiss musttherefore be taken as part of the evolution of the ceremonial as a whole.The controversyover the hand-kiss reveals to us also the differencesbetweenthe ceremonial of the consuls' audiences and that of the reception of navyofficers as temporary envoys. The Bardo conceded distinctions to specialenvoys much more easily than it did to the consuls. The former remained inTunis for some days, at most for a few weeks; the latter were establishedtherefor many years and integrated themselves into the social networks of thebeylical court. Thus the ceremonial for the visits of envoys affected thelegitimation of the bey's power much less. These formschanged much earliertowards a relationshipof reciprocity.

VAs the privileges obtained by the European consuls in 1816 show, theceremonial of the Bardo rather evolved by the exemption of the consuls thanby the variation of established forms. Before the i83os, consuls acquireddistinctions by the multiplication of contacts outside of the setting of courtceremoniesand public audiences. At the end of the i 76os, the French consuland hisBritishcolleague were the only ones to be receivedregularly by the beyin private audience. For Barthelemy de Saizieu, this privilege reflected theprestigeof the king that he represented.The French and Britishconsulssorted

out pending questionsdirectlywith the bey, while theircolleagueswere obligedto 'settle with his officials for everything that they required' ('composer avec85 Ibid., pp. 242-3.

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CHRISTIAN WINDLERses officiers sur tout ce qu'ils ont a pretendre'), if they did not want to humiliatethemselves during the public audience.86 Observers still noted, in the I82os, aclear contrast between discussions in small committee and the public audiences,where the bey affirmed his consideration in 'a brusque tone ... especially to theChristians' ('un ton plus brusque ... surtout avec les chretiens').87Private audiences, where the question of the presentation of the bey'sauthority in front of his subjects was raised to a much lesser extent, weresubjected to a less rigid ceremonial. The emblematic value that interlocutorsplaced on certain gestures, notably in the setting of the public audiences,contributed to freezing these occasions, whereas informal occasions permittedsome unusual attention. This was the case in Tunis, in I8I6, at the time of astay of three weeks by the princess of Wales. The singularity of the eventpermitted gestures of European gallantry, so, the bey's sons gave 'very politely'('tres poliment') an arm to the princess to escort her to see the palace lions.Although the ceremonial of diplomatic exchange was not directly in play, thesegestures also influenced the symbolic balance of relations. Four years later, theEuropean and Tunisian protagonists still recalled the episode.88The multiplication of contacts outside of the public audiences characterizesthe practice of Franco-Tunisian relations from the reign of AlI bey.Barthelemy de Saizieu, consul to Tunis from I763 to I778, exercised aninfluence even on the succession of the bey.89 He said he was 'the first and onlyto have won his confidence, free access to him and a place to stay in hispalace '.90It was the country houses on the sea-shore at La Marsa that offered theprivileged setting for sociability freed from the ceremonial of the publicaudience at the Bardo. At La Marsa, where the bey, his entourage, theChristian consuls, and some traders had their country residences, they becametied up with often intense casual contacts, notably between consuls and the beyor influential characters in his court. Barthelemy de Saizieu enjoyed hiscountry residence by virtue of a free concession from the bey. The closeproximity to the prince's residence reflected, in space, his close relations withthe beylical court. These continued under his successors. In 1819, Mahmudbey occasionally had meals sent to Devoize, the French consul.91One of Barthelemy de Saizieu's successors saw La Marsa as the most suitableplace to meet Mustafa khfidja, principal minister of the bey; the possibility

86 Barthelemy de Saizieu to Praslin, Tunis, 18 Nov. 1768, AN, AE B 1I142, fo. 295r-v.87 Louis Jean-Baptiste Filippi, Fragments historiques et statistiques sur la regence de Tunis,I829, in Charles Monchicourt, Documentsistoriquesur a 7Tunisie:elationsnedites eNyssen,Filippiet Calligaris (1788, I829, I834) (Paris, 1929), pp. 41-292, at pp. i60-i.88 Gay to Devoize, Tunis, 12 June 1820, AN, 327 AP I8.89 Barth6elmy de Saizieu to Sartine, Tunis, II Oct. 1776, 14 and I8 Feb. I777, AN, AE B'I47--8.90 'le premier et le seul qui en ait obtenu la confiance, le libre acces et un logement dans son

palais' (Memoire surl'echelle de Tunis, Tunis, I Oct. 1774,signed: Barth6elmyde Saizieu, MAE,MD, Afrique,vol. 9, fo. I4Ir-v).91 Gay to Devoize, L'Abdelie, 14 Sept. I819, AN, 327 AP 14.

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MUSLIM-CHRISTIAN RELATIONS IN TUNISof lodging not far from his home was 'the real means of keeping close contactwith this principal ministeron whom everything depends' ('le vrai moyen dese lier particulierementavec ce principalministrede qui tout depend').92Thismameluk received consuls in his country residence93or returned visits intheirs94 even occasionallydining there.95These visits,carefullymentioned byconsuls, facilitated the resolutionof delicate matters.Whereas the casual visits at La Marsa were, by the end of the eighteenthcentury, no longerexceptional,mealsat the Christianconsuls'houseswere stillviewed as infringementsof religioustaboos and, as such, remainedinfrequent.In cohtrast to the discreet contacts at La Marsa, visits to the Europeanfonduksof Tunis took place under the eyes of a Maghrebi and a European public andhad, therefore,more direct influence on the symbolic balance.

Although these visits became more frequent, they were observed with careby consuls who received them. They tended to exaggerate the novelty of theoccasion or, at least, the aspects that distinguishedit from those accorded totheircolleagues.Visitsreinforced,on the one hand, signsofreciprocitythat stillrepelledTunisian society, and on the other hand, they establisheda hierarchybetween the European representatives.This was especially the case if the visitwas made on the occasion of a ceremony that characterized the consul asrepresentativeof his sovereign. When the royal standard was hoisted for thefirst time on the Spanish consular house, Mustafa khfdja attended for overseven and a half hours a ball and dinner given by the consul-general, incompany with other dignitaries of the Regency. The consul noted, under-standably, that it was a very special favour; one can imagine well that itprovoked thejealousies of his colleagues, as the Spanish consul claimed.96In I809, the desire to mark symbolically Napoleon's military victoriesinspired from Devoize a description of the visit of Yiisuf sahib al-tabi(guardof the seal), two days afterNapoleon's feast, that underlines the noveltyof stlch a visit and the brilliant character of the cortege, as well as thesatisfaction shown by the guard of the seal during a reception organized tooblige him. In these circumstances, the present of the 'complete porcelainservicethat pleasedhim' ('toute la porcelainedu servicequi lui avait plu') anda 'beautiful telescope' ('un beau telescope') was no longer assimilated to atribute, as European powers' presents had been by the Maghrebis, butsymbolizedthe imbalance of cultural representations hat the consulwished toaffirm.97Actually, the visit of Yfsuf sahib al-tabi had not fulfilled the

92 Delespine de Chateauneuf to Castries,Tunis, 6 Aug. (quotation) and 6 Sept. 1787, AN, AEBI 1152.93 Accounts of the Consulate, 1795,presentedby Suchita; accounts of the consulate,July-Dec.1799, presented by Buzaran, AHN, Estado, leg. 6248.94 Barthdelmy de Saizieu to Bourgeois de Boynes, Tunis, 22 Aug. 1774, AN, AE B' 1145,fo. 283r-v; idem to Sartine, Tunis, 28 May 1775, AN, AE BI I146, fo. 8Ir.95 Delespine de Chateauneuf to La Luzerne, Tunis, 30 May I790, AN, AE B' II53, fo. I32v.96 Suchita to Aranda, Tunis, 12 Dec. 1792, AHN, Estado, leg. 4802.97 Journal et notes de l'annee I808 et I809, note of 17 Aug. i809, AN, 327 AP I.

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CHRISTIAN WINDLERconsul's initial hopes. The description written for the imperial governmentconceals the fact that, on the pretext of being busy, the guard of the seal hadrefused the invitation to the feast itself. Instead of a lunch, he only accepted asimple meal.98 Clearly, Yfisuf sahib al-tabi' was conscious of the implica-tions that his visit would have for the ceremonial that regulatedFranco-Tunisian relations.

In the I82os, the reigning bey himself began going to dine in the countryhouses of European consuls. During negotiations between delegations ofGeneral Clauzel and the bey's family on the future government of Constantineand Oran, the bey, his brother, his children, and ministers met at least twotimes on the steam-powered boat of the delegation, went out on the sea andagreed to share a meal offered by the French. If the members of bey's familyhad, at least from 1815, accepted European officer's invitations, this was thefirst time that a reigning bey accepted to place himself under a European flag.In the context of the military occupation of the neighbouring regency of Algiersand the negotiations on the establishment of Husaynite beys of Constantineand Oran as tributary princes of France, it was, on the part of beylical family,a way of associating its fate publicly with that of the infidels.99At the time of his accession, in I835, Mustafa bey wished that this eventshould be solemnized in Europe by a salvo of a hundred and one cannon-shots,like that fired at this time, in Tunis, when the enthronement of a Europeanruler was announced there. The gesture asked by the bey was unprecedentedin Europe. It would have signified the reciprocity of relations between theRegency and the European powers.100 More than its rejections itself, theargumentation of the French ministry of foreign affairs is revealing, since it isnot only founded on 'the unusual character of such a demonstration' ('lecaractere insolite d'une telle demonstration'), but also on the inequality of rankthat existed between 'a great sovereign of Europe' ('un grand souveraind'Europe') and 'a head of the Regency' ('un chef de la regence').101The rejection of the old ceremonial of the Regency, that, with the abolitionof the hand-kiss in I836, also concerned the public audiences of the Bardo,came with the establishment of ties of dependence, rather than the integrationof the Regency into the diplomatic system created by the Congress of Vienna.The stay of Ahmad bey in Paris, in 1846, the first visit of a Muslim ruler to anEuropean capital, symbolizes this imbalance.102

98 Stinca to Devoize, Bardo, n.d., AN, 327 AP I6.99 Lessepsto Sebastiani, Tunis, 19 Nov. I830, MAE, CPC, Tunis, vol. I, fos. I5ov--r. On thesecond visit inJanuary 1831: idem to Sebastiani, Tunis, I5Jan. 83 , ibid., fos. i6ov-Ir.100 Deval to Broglie, Tunis, 23 May 1835, MAE, CPC, Tunis, vol. 2, fos. 94v-5r.101Broglie to Deval, Paris, 28 Aug. 1835, MAE, CPC, Tunis, vol. 2, fo. I22r.102 See Brown, The Tunisiaof Ahmadbey,pp. 325-34.

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VIDiplomatic ceremonial symbolized power relationships taken as legitimate.However, it was not fixed once and for all. Rather, as with royal ceremonies,all interlocutors associatedwith it their own interpretationsof the context, andadapted it to theirsystemsof values. Diplomatic ceremonialreproduced,whileadjustingin a dynamic manner to transformations,conceptions of power andreciprocal relations. Continuities and variations of its forms had immediatemeaning for interactors.l03In the European diplomatic system of the ancien regime structuredaccording to an hierarchical order that was, in origin, that of the Respublicachristiana,eremonial expressed and corroborated publicly the subtle differ-entiations of rank. If, under Norbert Elias'sinfluence,104esearchinterestfirstfocusedon the workingof royal ceremonials under the absolutemonarchy, onealso begins to understand better their transformation towards the end of theancien regime aswell as attempts to restoreroyal symbolismafter I8I4.105Therise of a concept of sovereignty that transcended the individual will of theprince meant that during the eighteenth century forms of representationofcourt societies,repeated in a more or lessrigid way, became opaque, hence theperception of ceremonial as an obstacle that prevented, or at least made moredifficult,fruitfulnegotiations.However, throughthe reinterpretationof the oldgestures and the establishment of new ones, a ceremonial attached to thedomain of the state still continuestoday to regulatediplomaticcommunication.Diplomatic ceremonial in the ancien regime certainlyreflected firstthegloryand the prestige of the prince before his subjects, and in confronting rivalcourts,but it alsoregulated exchanges betweendiplomatic representatives hatonly acquired their meaning in the local context.'06 Royal ceremonial,

103 Alain Boureau, 'Ritualite politique et modernite monarchique', in Neithard Bulst, RobertDescimon, and Alain Guerreau, eds., L'Etatou e roi: lesfondationse amodernitemonarchiquenFrance(XIVe-XVIIe icle) (Paris, I996), pp. 9-25, especially p. 14.Cf. Daniela Frigo,Principe,mbasciatorie'jusgentium': 'amministrazioneella olitica stera elPiemonteelSettecento(Rome, 1991), pp. 269-88.104 Norbert Elias, Die hofischeGesellschaft:Untersuchungenur Soziologiedes Kdnigtums nd derhofischenristokratie it einerEinleitung:Soziologie ndGeschichtswissenschaft4th edn, Frankfurt amMain, 1979), on the etiquette and ceremonial see chs. 5 and 6, pp. I20-221.105 In hismasterwork on Lesroisthaumaturges,arcBloch hadalreadystudied thedisappearanceof the toucheroyal n England and France (Marc Bloch, Lesroisthaumaturges:tude urle caracteresurnaturelttribue la puissance oyale,particulierementn Franceet en AngleterreStrasbourg, 1924),pp. 38I-405). Linked to Bloch's conclusions, Alain Guery ('L'image perdue des rois de France,XVIIIe-XXe siecle', in Heinz Duchhardt, Richard A. Jackson and David Sturdy, eds., Europeanmonarchy:tsevolutionndpracticefromomanAntiquityomodernimes(Stuttgart, 1992), pp. 195-206)draws attention to the desacralization of the image of the king at the end of the ancien regime andits failed restoration under LouisXVIII and Charles X. Cf. FrancoiseWaquet, Lesfetesroyalesousla Restaurationu l'AncienRegime etrouvdGeneva, i98I). See Milos Vec, ZeremonialwissenschaftmFiirstenstaat. tudien zur juristischenund politischenTheorieabsolutistischerHerrschaftsreprdsentation(Frankfurtam Main, 1998), on the German science of the ceremonial in the eighteenth century.106 Like Norbert Elias, the American ceremonialist school, which was interested in the royalsymbolism of the ancien regime as the leading element in the customary constitution of a

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CHRISTIAN WINDLERcertainly, but it belonged also to all those that took part and used it to affirmtheir rank in the hierarchy of honours.l07The transformations of Franco-Tunisian diplomatic ceremonial between 1700 and I840 arose in the tensionsbetween the local society to which mediators belonged and the society of thecourt or the capital.At the end of the I82os, a quarrelbetween the British and French consuls,Reade and Lesseps,over the order of precedence shows us this complexity ofsituations of interaction. At the time of the Congress of Vienna, the formerorderof precedencewas replaced by a new regulation based on the equality ofsovereign state representatives:the diplomatic rank of agents- and not therank of princesor states- and their seniorityin the posting in question shouldhenceforth decide their prerogatives. In Europe and in Tunis, forms andmeaningof ceremonialevolved accordingto differentrhythms.Until 1829, theFrench consuls in Tunis enjoyed precedence, although they were not doyens.Thomas Reade himself had initially given way to his French colleague. TheEuropean society in Tunis, whilst interactingwith European capitals, obeyedits own norms. The decisionsof the Congressesof Vienna and Aix-la-Chapelleintervenedto situate a consulin a disputeof honour. At the same time, officialsin the French ministry of foreign affairs, charged with answering Lesseps'sdispatches, no longer understoodthe terms by which the consul defended hisright to precedence over his British colleague. If the ministerial dispatchsustainedcharge d'affairesLesseps'spriorityof rank over his colleagueshavingthe lesser title of'agent', it qualified this situation as 'incongruous' ('dis-parate'). The proposedsolutionshowed that, as a manifestation of a hierarchyof honour distinguishing princesor states,the precedencehad, even in the viewof a conservative ministry- that of Polignac - lost its meaning: powers couldeasily end the 'incongruous' situation by giving to their consuls the title of'charge d'affaires'.108 In the face of an interpretationof diplomaticceremonialas being a matter solely for a prince or a state, the case shows how a modestintermediarycould still be attached to something that he consideredto be anattribute of his social status. In the manner of a noble in a European court ofthe ancien regime, the consul was a fully fledged actor in a ceremonial that heused to affirm the prestigeof his consulate.It is essentialto underlinethis diversity.It allows us to guard againsta visionof Franco-Tunisian relations that opposes French and Tunisians as coherentcultural entities with fixed identities, pre-existinginteraction. It is only from

monarchical state, concentrated on the function of the ceremonial as a means of reinforcingmonarchical power (see, for example, Ralph E. Giesey, Ceremonialtpuissanceouveraine: rance,XVe-XVIIesiecles Paris, 1987); Richard Jackson, Vive e roi!A history f the French oronationromCharlesV to CharlesX (Chapel Hill, I984)).107 See Jeroen Duindam, Myths of power: NorbertElias and the earlymodernEuropean ourt(Amsterdam, 1994), especially pp. 99- 36.108 Polignac to Lesseps, Paris, 25 Aug. I829, MAE, CCC, Tunis, vol. 48, fos. 235r-6r.

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MUSLIM-CHRISTIAN RELATIONS IN TUNISthis relation of diversity that one can attempt to understand the manner inwhich practices of interaction, and more especially diplomatic ceremonial,evolved between I700 and I840. In this period the public images that thepowers in Europe and America gave themselveschanged profoundly. Eventssuch as the American and French Revolutions provoked ruptures that madeinterpretationsattached to certain practicesproblematic, such as for examplethe hand-kiss. The Bardo followed these transformations, negotiated in-teraction practices to which it attached its own interpretations, adapted to itssystem of values and rules of procedure, that itself underwent modificationthrough contacts with Europeans. Linguistic usage presents an eloquentexample of a practice that allowed the assertion of a conception of relationswith the Christianswhich was contradictory to the treatieswhose reciprocitywas likely to jar Muslim sensitivities. The choice of language was part ofpractices that recalled, but also produced and reproduced daily, norms thatgoverned relations between Christians and Muslims in the Maghreb. In thesame way, the ceremonial that regulated contacts with envoys and Christianconsuls constituted an interactional modus ivendi stablished by interlo